Controversial French Author Houellebecq Retracts Anti-Muslim Comments in New Book

"I apologize to all Muslims who may have been offended by this text - that is, I’m afraid, just about all Muslims. [...] I unhesitatingly renounce this idiotic text," writes writer Michel Houellebecq in his book Some Months in My Life. October 2022 - March 2023 published this Wednesday, May 24 by Flammarion editions.

"People are arming themselves. They are getting guns, taking courses at shooting ranges. [...] When entire territories are under Islamic control, I think acts of resistance will take place. There will be attacks and shootings in mosques, in cafes frequented by Muslims. [...] The wish of the native French population, as they say, is not for Muslims to assimilate, but for them to stop stealing and assaulting them. Or else, another solution, for them to leave," he had notably declared during a discussion between essayist Michel Onfray and himself, published in the Front populaire review in December 2022.

Today, Houellebecq is changing his tune. "I think more and more that the problem is not Islam, it is delinquency. Delinquents are so because their nature leads them towards evil and, when they engage in jihad, it is to be able to do even more harm, Islam is only a pretext. They can have access to serious weapons, unavailable in the suburbs, they can torture and behead, they are happy," he said to Le Point.

And he added: "I was caught up in a collective stupidity, there is a whole discourse that has developed on a link between Islam and delinquency which is simply false. The assiduous practice of any religion, whatever it may be, does not lead to delinquency, these are two radically divergent paths of life."